


B: Rule #6

by viceversa



Series: Soulmates A-Z [2]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Gibbs rules, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29292135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceversa/pseuds/viceversa
Summary: Their mis-match was a fluke of timing, but they found each other when it mattered.-b...ody art (doodles that a person draws on themselves appear on their soulmate’s skin).
Relationships: Jethro Gibbs/Jacqueline "Jack" Sloane
Series: Soulmates A-Z [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2149590
Comments: 10
Kudos: 65





	B: Rule #6

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for your kind comments on the last fic! I'm glad so many are excited to see this series!

Gibbs never put a lot of stock into the idea of soulmates. The whole concept was a little ridiculous, that just because someone drew something on their skin it would appear on their soulmate - what kind of humor did the universe have to create that set up? Puberty was hard enough without trying to navigate having a soulmate in the world. 

He didn’t hate it when marks eventually appeared on his skin, though, even if they were girly - a flower on the back of his hand, a heart on his ankle. In his youth he retaliated with poorly drawn snakes and boats which soon transformed into short messages back and forth. He was lucky when his soulmate happened to live in his town, and when he first met Shannon in person, it was easy. 

Neither one felt it necessary to doodle on their skin for no reason. They used it for practical purposes, and it was Shannon who used it nine times out of ten.  _ Get milk. I love you. I miss you. I’m pregnant. We’re out of diapers. Come back home.  _ Simple messages meant to reaffirm their bond, meant to be there for him when he was an ocean away. 

When she was old enough to draw, Kelly would use Shannon’s arm as her personal connection to him, doodling youthful flowers and hearts that would appear on his forearm in the middle of the desert, reminding him of his own childhood. 

He’d reply when he had something to say, written in block letters and to the point.  _ Be home soon. Love you. Miss you.  _ He saved it for the important things, acknowledging the happiness that he felt each time something appeared on his skin. 

The last week they had been alive, his arms were covered in messages of reassurance and love, doing nothing to temper his worry. The moment he looked down and saw a blank canvas, his world ended right there in the desert. 

-

Jack hated the whole soulmate thing. She never thought it was cute or beautiful, from what she saw it just brought pain and confusion. Her parents were soulmates, sure, but their relationship was far from perfect. Happily ever after existed in cartoons. 

It was just so random. Some people were able to communicate since they were toddlers, others had to wait decades until a match was more established, like there was a hint of free will involved. The majority of the population were linked sometime during puberty, which was hell on the hormones and on society. 

When Jack hit puberty she was excited when she saw the occasional note on her skin, but they were always out oddly of context. One day it would just say  _ Yes _ , as if replying to an unasked question, then nothing for ages.

She would occasionally put a  _?  _ after a message, a  _ who are you?, _ but after the first few times with no explanation she stopped trying to communicate, feeling in her gut that somehow the wires of fate got crossed and she could only see her soulmate’s words - he couldn’t see hers. It was all a scam.

She wrote on her arm for spite, then, her angsty teenage self replying  _ Fuck you  _ every time  _ Be home soon  _ appeared; writing  _ I hate you  _ to the sporadic  _ Love you _ s that were written. It felt like she was cursed, and before long she took to wearing only long sleeved shirts, something she could get away with in the Philadelphia weather almost year round. 

Jack took great pains to not look at her arms, stopping all contact that couldn’t be reciprocated, an overheard conversation from one side. Was she destined to love someone who couldn’t love her back? Someone who already had a soulmate, who she was unluckily tied to? Why her? Was she unloveable?

She tried not to think about it, tried to live her life even when it felt like nothing was going right. Through her pregnancy and violence surrounding it, through her triumphs in the army and the nine months of hell trapped in a hole in Afghanistan. At some point, whoever was her unrequited soulmate stopped writing altogether, and she didn’t try at all. 

They were either dead or uncaring, and she had other things to focus on. Like surviving.

-

Gibbs never thought bare skin would cause him so much pain. He knew he had taken it for granted, the connection he’d shared with Shannon, the communication. He regretted every second he hadn’t written to her, hadn’t done so much as draw a heart to appear on her arm. 

He only wrote on his arm twice more after they died. The first at their funeral,  _ I’m sorry,  _ breaking a rule of his own. The second after he shot Pedro Hernandez in the head,  _ I did it.  _ He wanted to say a thousand more things to them, things he never got the chance to do, but he knew there wasn’t a point when his arm would remain blank in response. 

Gibbs watched as his wives coveted other couples with matching marks on their arms, watched as Diane had a late pairing and left him for Fornell, a fluke in evolution or whatever the hell controlled it all. He sighed the day when Ziva wrote an address on her hand and it appeared across the bullpen on Tony’s, and he smiled when McGee came into work one day with a heart and some nerd thing written on his arm, connecting him to Delilah forever. 

He lived trying to remember the good times because they were so few and far between. He was lucky to have had a family at all, had a chance to be with his soulmate for over a decade before he lost her. 

Yet it still hurt a little every time he came down to autopsy and Palmer had a heart drawn on his cheek, or when he saw colorful toddler art appear on McGee’s arm. He kept his friends who’d suffered similar fates close to him, an unspoken bond formed between Leon and him after Jackie died - a brotherhood between him and Fornell after Diane. 

It became a habit to not mark his skin. He’d write any notes in his notebook, find a scrap of paper for any reminder. When the occasional pen or marker would leave a line, his heart would skip a beat at the memory and he’d wash his hands until no trace remained. 

But he was helpless when, one day, a witness began flirting with him and grabbed his hand - half of her number was scrawled on his palm before he managed to politely wrench his hand back. He instead handed her Torres’ business card and made his exit back to his car, meeting up with McGee to go back to the office. 

His palm itched the whole ride there, the numbers feeling wrong on his skin.

-

Jack looked down in shock at her hand. She was halfway through her lunch when she noticed it - four numbers scrawled in pen ink across her palm, appearing out of nowhere. 

It had been decades since any mark had appeared on her skin that she’d noticed. Sure, she’d slipped a few times with a pen here and there, but she usually had hand sanitizer nearby to get rid of the ink, not needing the reminder that there was no one to mirror the mark on their own skin. 

Suddenly thrown back into her teenage mindset and feeling petulant, she grabbed a pen off her desk and without thinking wrote  _ Oh, fuck you _ just under the numbers, yelling once again at a universe that refused to let her have a connection. She’d wash her hand after peacefully enjoying the rest of her lunch, her rebellion that no one could see defending the pang in her heart. 

-

Gibbs had to rub his eyes, thinking it was a trick of the bathroom light, but the sight remained unchanged.  _ Oh, fuck you _ was written just under the numbers on his palm.

He knew for sure that the woman he was interviewing didn’t have time to write that, let alone even finish her phone number. It had appeared at some point between the interview and him rushing to the bathroom to wash it off. 

He confirmed the feeling in his gut when he washed his hands and only the numbers came off, as if  _ Oh, fuck you  _ was tattooed into his skin.

That didn’t stop him from scrubbing his palm raw with harsh soap, his mind racing at the thought of what it could mean. His first thought, that it didn’t look like Shannon’s handwriting, was entirely irrational. His second, that he was seeing things, quickly faded into reality. The third was that he apparently had another soulmate, one with a mouth on her. 

After looking surreptitiously around the bathroom and seeing nothing but orange walls, Gibbs took a pen out of his jacket and let it hover over his left palm. Should he reply to this person? Try to find them? Reach out and… and what, fall in love again? 

He should probably call Grace about the whole thing. But first, he went with his detective gut and followed up on the lead while it was still fresh. In small block letters, he wrote  _ Excuse me? _ just under the profanity on his skin. 

Forcefully shoving aside the problem to deal with later, and maybe when he had a therapist to stop him from spiraling, Gibbs left the bathroom and went back to work, making sure to keep his palm out of the sight of his perceptive agents. 

-

Jack choked on her coffee when she saw her hand again. She was just about to rub off the ink with hand sanitizer when she saw that it had changed - this time it was a response. 

A response. To  _ her words _ . The numbers were gone, and below the childish  _ Oh, fuck you _ was a message to her. A question.  _ Excuse me?  _

Her soulmate could read her words. 

Immediately she was incensed - could he have read them all along and just not replied? What the hell? But it wasn’t important - the important thing was that he was replying now, that he was seeing her words even if their first contact happened to be her telling him to fuck off. 

Jack realized she was on her way to hyperventilating and tried to calm down. She pushed her chair back and leaned forward, getting control of her breath after a few minutes, staring at her hand to make sure it was real. 

She didn’t know what to do. 

Still half-frantic in her movements, she took out her phone and sent a text to Grace. 

_ >Are you free? _

Ambiguous enough, but she knew it would alert her friend. Within a minute she received a reply. 

_ >Call me in five minutes. _

Jack took the five to regain control over her body. She walked around her office a few times, trying to re-regulate her nervous system and using techniques to ground herself. Before calling, she made sure her door was locked and got comfortable on the couch. 

Grace picked up immediately. _ “What’s wrong?” _

Jack barely knew where to start. “Thanks for making time,” she said instead.

_ “Jack, is someone hurt or dead? _ ” she asked, not unkindly. 

“No - god no. It’s just.” Jack sighed and looked at her hand, anticipating the jump in her chest at the sight. “Something happened to me.”

_ “Well it doesn’t sound like you’re bleeding out, at least.” _

Jack huffed out a laugh. “No, nothing quite like that.”

_ “But just as serious, judging by your tone. What happened, Jack?” _

“Some, uh. Some numbers appeared on my hand today.”

_ “Wow. It’s been a while hasn’t it?” _

“A long time,” she replied. “It surprised me, so I wrote back.”

_ “What did you write?” _

“I told him to fuck off, basically.”

Grace cackled.  _ “Very mature, but understandable. We’ve talked about this before - your anger here is directed at the lack of reciprocation, not the person.” _

“Yeah, I know,” she cleared her throat. “But this time he responded.”

_ “What! You really buried the lede there, Sloane! What did he say?” _

Jack smiled for the first time all day, suddenly flushing from Grace’s excitement. “He said,  _ Excuse me? _ Right under where I said  _ Fuck you. _ ”

_ “How romantic,”  _ Grace teased, but Jack could tell she was smiling.  _ “What did you say back?” _

“Nothing. I froze, damn near had a panic attack. I don’t know what I should do.” She closed her eyes and leaned back on the couch. “I mean, what if he’s been intentionally ignoring me my entire life?”

_ “And what if he never got your messages before? You know as well as I do that there’s a percentage of mis-matches out there, and several of them report later that it was an issue of timing, not of unrequited feelings. Maybe your timing is finally right.” _

Jack sat with that for a second, mind swirling at the possibility of really finding out who her soulmate was after all these years. “I have to write back, don’t I,” she said, more a statement than a question. 

_ “Yeah, you do. And I’d do it soon. Ya ain’t gettin’ any younger, and I bet whoever the guy is isn’t either.” _

Jack smiled again, feeling a little more assured than before. “Thank you, Grace. I don’t know who the hell this guy is, but you’re right, I have to find out.”

_ “Call me when you do.” _

Jack hung up and let her head fall back against the couch. What should she say back? Should she introduce herself, or apologize for being rude?

The phone on her desk rang and jerked her out of her thoughts. Work came first. 

-

Gibbs stared at his hand. 

He managed to avoid looking at it, and having it be looked at, the rest of the day. But now he was in his basement, jar of bourbon in one hand and the other palm up on the table, and reading glasses perched on his nose.

He’d gotten a reply since that afternoon, and the woman had also cleaned off her first message. Across the top of his palm in neat print read:

_ Sorry, that was rude. Didn’t know you were able to see it. _

Now, what the hell was he supposed to do with that? Didn’t know he could see it? He had half a mind to call Grace right then, but it was late on a Friday and he didn’t want to deal with her excitement. Instead he took a sip of bourbon and closed his eyes, thinking of Shannon.

What would she say if she was there? Infuriatingly, she didn’t magically appear in front of him. She had loved him so much, and he would love her until she died. As he thought about it, all he felt was an unusual amount of calmness, even peace, and he knew that Shannon was okay with whatever this new connection meant. 

Which meant he had to reply something. He took his time deciding, sanding the boat for a good chunk of the evening, talking himself out of writing out his address and being done with the suspense. He had to approach it a little more cautiously, not rush into something he wasn’t prepared for. 

Finishing his bourbon, he found a sharpie on his workbench and rolled up the sleeve of his hoodie, needing the space of his forearm to write out his response. Something neutral, to keep the conversation going without admitting to anything. 

_ Rule 6: Never say you’re sorry. It’s a sign of weakness. _

There. Grace would call it arrogant, but it’s what he would say if this woman was standing right in front of him and it felt right. 

Nodding at his choice, he turned back to the boat and got to work, knowing there was no way he’d be sleeping that night.

-

It had been one hell of a day. From the first shock of seeing the numbers on her palm to the whole gamut of emotions that followed, Jack had been exhausted by the time she’d been able to leave, sneaking out the back way so she didn’t have to talk to anyone. She honestly wasn’t sure what she would say. 

She had a difficult time keeping herself from looking at her hand every five seconds in anticipation of her next message. Instead she looked to the clock every five seconds to regulate her glances at her hand to every few minutes, then she gave up on the whole charade and stared at her hand while the news played in the background, a glass of wine occupying her other hand. 

When nothing appeared by the time the news was over and the glass of wine was empty, Jack sought distraction in the form of cleaning her kitchen. She started the dishwasher, filled her coffee pot for the morning, and wiped down her countertops, succeeding in ignoring her hand for a full twenty minutes. 

Congratulating herself, she refilled the wine glass and walked back to her couch, half listening to the late night show and sitting with a sign. Playing at nonchalance, Jack looked down at her hand again and nearly fell off her couch. 

She could just make out a few letters peeking out from under her cardigan,  _ -ness.  _ He’d left another message, this time on her arm. 

Cursing herself for not looking there sooner, she set her glass down and pushed up her sleeve, and her breath caught in her throat. 

_ Rule 6: Never say you’re sorry. It’s a sign of weakness. _

Holy cow. It was Gibbs. It had to be.

Suddenly overcome with a sense of eerie calm, Jack turned off the TV and gently returned her glass to the kitchen, turning off lights as she went. She slipped on her shoes by the door, picked up her keys and wallet, and double checked that the door was locked before walking to her car. 

She sat down in the driver’s seat of her mini, and every thought that had paused for the last two minutes rushed back into her head all at once. 

It was  _ Gibbs.  _ Of course it was. Her soulmate was the man she’d been dancing around for two years, the man she contemplated making a move on more than once, the man that she trusted more than almost anyone. 

Every interaction she’d had with him flipped through her mind, sticking on when he confirmed that Shannon had been his soulmate. Oh, god, she’d seen the messages he wrote to her for years! What an invasion - she’d have to explain everything to him, everything that led to the  _ Oh, fuck you _ she’d so unwittingly written earlier that day. 

What was she going to do, just drive to his house and walk in and say, hey there soulmate, long time no write? She felt crazy, but the words on her arm confirmed the feeling in her gut - the big, confusing, Gibbs-shaped feeling that had been with her for years. 

Jack smiled, thinking the thought again.  _ It was Gibbs _ . It felt so right - however it would turn out, he was Gibbs! They still had a friendship, they still had trust. If he wanted to take it further then she would be right there with him. If he didn’t, then she’d double up on her visits with Grace and accept that she at least had an answer. 

Newly resolved to go to him, Jack started her car and drove off. 

-

Gibbs could barely focus on aligning the panels he was clamping to the frame of his boat, and it wasn’t due to exhaustion or the bourbon. No, he felt alert but distracted, glancing at his arm where his sleeve was still pushed up, waiting on a response. 

To be honest, he just never expected anything like this could happen to him. It was a second chance at a life with someone, and it scared the hell out of him. If anything, he thought he would spend the last years of his life alone, surrounded by his family. He had found peace in the idea a long time ago, and even recently when he’d considered making a move on Sloane…

He stopped the thought in its tracks. Jack was too good for him, and too young. He came to the conclusion months ago that he couldn’t inflict himself on her, not after everything she’d been through. He distanced himself after that Christmas, reminding himself that she was his friend, the person he trusted more than most. He didn’t want to risk that. In fact, he’d probably tell her about this before anyone else to see what she’d say.

And now he had this whole other possibility that was driving him crazy. In just the space of half a day, he’d gone from no idea to the prospect of another soulmate. Gibbs made another mental note to call Grace as soon as he could when he heard his front door open. 

Unconsciously he pulled the sleeve of his hoodie down to cover his arm, not needing whoever was paying him a visit to see it so obviously marked up. He didn’t have to wait long.

Jack appeared at the top of his stairs, think of the devil style. He took in her calm appearance and lowered his worry at her late appearance. She seemed to be okay, at least physically. 

“Hey, Cowboy,” she greeted him. 

“Jack.” He walked to the bench and emptied a jar for her, pouring the expected offering of bourbon and handing it to her with his right hand, consciously keeping his left palm out of sight as he perched on a stool. “What brings you here?”

She was relaxed as can be, taking the drink from his hand and downing it in one smooth motion. His gut jolted at the sight and he tried not to visibly react. Before he could comment, Jack raised her left arm and pushed up her sleeve, revealing her forearm to him. 

Her forearm with his handwriting on it.  _ Rule 6: Never say you’re sorry. It’s a sign of weakness. _

“This,” she answered his question as he gaped at her. 

In a second he was on his feet and right next to her, taking hold on her arm as if needing to confirm it was real. How the hell was she so calm right now?

“Well?” she asked. “I take it your arm looks like mine.”

He pried his gaze from her arm and looked at her, noticing for the first time the tension in her jaw, the slight widening of her eyes. “Jack…”

“Yeah, surprised the hell outta me too, Gibbs.”

He went soft at the sound of her voice and let go of her arm, raising his own and letting his palm show. “Yeah,” he said unnecessarily. 

Jack took in the sight of the smudged ink on his hand, knowing it mirrored hers exactly, and looked back into his gaze as she lifted her hand to touch his, bringing it down by their sides and holding on tight. “Well. What should we do about it?”

More certain that he thought possible, Gibbs stepped an inch closer, tracking the way Jack tilted her face up. “I think… Rule 5. Don’t waste good.”

“What about Rule 12?” she asked, nearly at a whisper. 

Gibbs shrugged and closed the final inch between them, squeezing her hand and bringing his free one up to the side of her face. “Rule 51, Jack.”

Before she could recite the rule, he pressed his lips against hers, feeling heat run down his spine as she pressed up into him, her arm coming up around his back. Unbidden, he felt her deepen the kiss, pushing his mouth open capturing his lower lip between hers. 

Every question he had flew out of his mind. Holding her felt right, felt like what he was supposed to be doing, and he’d be damned to ever let her go.


End file.
